“I’d just passed it off as just something falling down in the trunk or [us] just hearing things or a rock hitting the back of the car,” Loudermilk said.

But when Loudermilk and his wife, Desiree, got out of the car later, they discovered a bullet jutting from just above the bumper of the car, which belonged to their daughter.

“The trajectory was directly toward the headrest of the driver,” Loudermilk said, “but the elevation was wrong.”

That piqued the interest of the FBI, he said. The bureau is investigating the shooting, which was not publicly disclosed until Loudermilk’s interview with the AJC.

The FBI confirmed it is investigating the matter, the AJC reported.

It is unclear whether the shooter knew the two-term congressman was driving the car or whether the shot was a one-off occurrence. Federal investigators “believe the car was targeted” because of the elevation of the shot and because no other similar shooting happened that day.

It was the second time in less than four months that Loudermilk survived a shooting attack.

He was on the field in Alexandria, Va., at the GOP Congressional Baseball Game practice in June when a gunman opened fire on dozens of lawmakers and staffers.

He was also on an Amtrak train headed to the GOP Congressional retreat in West Virginia in January when the train struck a truck.

That’s the most the committee has ever raised during the second month of the year, according to figures obtained first by Roll Call.

The DCCC raised $3.38 million from online donations in February, with an average online gift of $18. So far this cycle, the group has raised more than $50 million online, which includes 300,000 first-time online donors, and a total of $125 million this cycle. It ended February with $49 million in the bank.

“It’s been clear all cycle long that the grassroots are energized and unified around the goal of taking back the House,” DCCC Chairman Ben Ray Luján said in a statement.

“The DCCC’s historic fundraising combined with incredible candidate fundraising will ensure that Democratic candidates have the resources to tell their powerful stories and connect with voters,” he added.

Democrats need to gain 24 seats to win control of the House in November. (The Associated Press still hasn’t called last week’s special election for Pennsylvania Democrat Conor Lamb in the 18th District, although Democrats have claimed victory.)

The DCCC raised $7.1 million in February 2016, during the height of the presidential contest. This year’s stronger on-year fundraising comes as the fight over control of the House takes center stage, with February marking the final month of fundraising before the first primaries in March. The committee angered some liberal groups with its involvement in the primary for Texas’ 7th District, which was held on March 6.

The DCCC raised $9.35 million in January — less than the $10.1 million the National Republican Congressional Committee raised during the same month.

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi is not worried about Republican campaign attacks against her stirring up enough opposition among Democratic candidates to impact her future as Democratic leader.

“I feel pretty confident about my ability, first and foremost, to be a master legislator for the American people, that I have proven that,” the California Democrat said.

“But what you have done is not why you should go forward. Why you should go forward is what are you going to do next, and we have a very positive agenda about how we take back the Congress for the Democrats,” she added. “I have a strong following in the country, and I don’t think the Koch brothers should decide who the leader of the Democratic party is in the House.”

Pelosi was responding to questions from reporters about the likely but still uncalled victory of Democrat Conor Lamb in the special election for Pennsylvania’s 18th District. The Koch-funded Americans for Prosperity, along with the National Republican Congressional Committee and the Congressional Leadership Fund, spent millions in the race trying to tie Lamb to Pelosi. Lamb subsequently said he would not support Pelosi for Democratic leader if he were elected.

“I just wanted him to win,” Pelosi said. “I don’t really think that that had much impact on the race.”

While Lamb did note on several occasions he was not supporting Pelosi, she doesn’t believe that was a major pillar of his campaign.

“I don’t think that he ran against me the entire time. I think he ran on his positive agenda,” Pelosi said, citing his support for protecting Medicare, helping working families and the backing he got from unions. “It was a very issues-oriented campaign.”

The “D” next to Lamb’s name was “very significant” in blue parts of the 18th District, and Lamb mounted a successful effort to minimize the damage in deep red counties, she added.

“This was a very big win,” she said.

Pelosi said she expects the Kochs and other Republicans to continue to spend money across the country trying to tie Democratic candidates to her, noting,“They’re coming after me because of my city and they’re against LGBT and they’re against poor children.”

“Yes, I am a liberal,” she said, but noted that “the misrepresentations, the denominations” that have put out against her are just like attacks Republicans have made against Democratic leaders for years and they won’t matter.

“I feel pretty confident that we’re going to win, we’re going to win big,” she said. “We’re going to win a lot of seats and that’s going to be good for the American people.”

If Democrats do win big enough to retake the House and Pelosi decides to run for speaker again, she will likely face a challenge.

Unlike elections for minority leader where she only needed a simple majority of the caucus to be elected, Pelosi will ultimately need 218 votes on the floor to be elected speaker. If Democrats hold a narrow majority, that vote could get complicated if several incoming freshmen win in part on promises not to support her.

Pelosi also wasn’t phased by the prospect of more Democratic candidates saying they won’t support her ultimately impacting her ability to remain as leader of the caucus.

“The fact is that one candidate in Texas came out and said he would not be for me and he came in fourth, so let’s not read too much into this,” she said, referring to Jay Hulings, who failed to advance out of the Democratic primary in Texas’s 23rd District.

Pelosi then continued to bring her argument back to the GOP: “This is part of the bankruptcy of the Republican Party. … They can’t win on the issues so they go after a person.”

Tributes to the late Billy Graham, talking points about the Russia investigation, touts for the Republican’s tax bill — watching the House and Senate floors can be a thankless task. But the floor charts make it all worthwhile.

Lawmakers like these oversized and sometimes garish visual aids because they help get the point across. The Twitter handle @FloorCharts posts some of the daily highlights, and Roll Call now provides a monthly roundup of the best of the best.

On March 13, Democratic Rep. Hakeem Jeffries of New York brought photographs of the women he deems to be the top female hip-hop artists of all time.

The congressman honored Women’s History Month by showcasing one artist each day for the first ten days of March. Last year, Jeffries made headlines when he brought a photograph of The Notorious B.I.G. to the House floor on the 20th anniversary of his death.

Rep. Mike Quigley walked the line between prop and floor chart on Feb. 27. The Illinois Democrat brought an Eddie Olczyk Blackhawks jersey to the House floor. A former NFL player turned Blackhawks announcer, Olczyk is fighting colon cancer.

Rep. Matt Gaetz took a jab at House Intelligence Committee ranking member Adam Schiff with a floor chart on March 5.

The Florida Republican gestured at a photograph of Schiff covered by a Russia Today lower third and a red callout reading “RT: KREMLIN-OWNED PROPAGANDA NETWORK.”

On Feb. 27, Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick brought a familiar image to the House floor: a high school.

The Pennsylvania Republican’s speech came amid the public conversation about school safety after the shooting in Parkland, Florida.

Sen. Jeff Merkley kept it simple on March 7. The Oregon Democrat spoke about housing foreclosures and brandished an image leaving nothing to the imagination: a house with a foreclosure label over it.

Bonus: An aide to Rep. John Shimkus tweeted a behind-the-scenes look at the congressman reviewing floor charts in his office on March 5.

Here’s a congressional throwback — a phrase or part of Capitol Hill culture that a younger generation of Hill staffers might not know.

The term (rhymes with rude) dates back to the Clinton administration. It was coined in 1993 during a debate on legislation to reduce the deficit, which included a proposal to tax the heat content — measured in British thermal units, or BTUs — of most forms of energy.

President Bill Clinton lobbied for House Democrats to vote for the tax, and most of them did. But he didn’t try as hard with Senate Democrats, and the proposal didn’t even see a vote in that chamber.

House Democrats were not pleased that they gave in to Clinton’s push to vote against their best interests, according to a 2005 CQ magazine piece. Democrats lost control of both chambers the following year in the Republican revolution.

During public remarks — both at official White House events and campaign rallies — he almost always brings up the tax law. He touted the tax cuts Wednesday during a roundtable with private-sector officials in St. Louis as they gushed about the law’s impacts on them personally, their employees and their businesses. And during a Saturday rally in Pennsylvania for GOP House candidate Rick Saccone, Trump urged the crowd to go vote for him Tuesday because “we need him. We need Republicans. We need the votes. Otherwise, they are going to take away ... your tax cuts.”

At least three times since Feb. 1 — and twice this week alone — the president has suggested Republicans need to team up with him again for “round two” of tax rate cuts and code alterations. He revealed Wednesday that House Ways and Means Chairman Kevin Brady is working with him to write a second measure.

But the president's first comments about a second bill could be viewed as him just ribbing the Texas Republican, whom he has teased about working around the clock to get the GOP tax law crafted and to his desk.

“We’re now going for a phase two. We’re actually going for a phase two,” Trump said Wednesday. “It’s going to be something very special. Kevin Brady’s working on it with me.” He even contended that Democrats will have a “big incentive” to support the second bill.

Trump singled out Brady on Monday during an event at the White House, telling him, “Kevin, are we going for an additional tax cut, I understand?”

“He’s the king of those tax cuts. Yeah, we’re going to do a phase two,” the president said. “I’m hearing that.”

The audience, there to see the president honor the World Series Champion Houston Astros, responded with a collective laugh. A lighthearted Trump smiled, but persisted in a serious tone: “We’re actually very serious about that, Kevin. So it’s good.”

Those predictions of a “phase two” came after Trump went to the GOP policy retreat in West Virginia on Feb. 1 and said this while addressing Brady: “Maybe we’ll do a ‘phase two,’ I don’t know. We’ll do a phase two. Are you ready for that, Kevin? Huh? I think you’re ready. ... We’ll get them even lower.”

Asked just what the president is referring to and whether he was indeed working on a new tax overhaul bill, a White House official replied succinctly: “He was joking.”

But was he?

A Ways and Means spokeswoman referred a reporter to comments Brady made Wednesday on Fox Business. “We are,” he replied when asked if a second tax bill is in the works.

“We think even more can be done,” Brady said. “While the tax cuts for families were longterm, they’re not yet permanent. So we’re going to address issues like that. We’re in discussions with the White House, the president, on this issue.”

Brady and other Republicans dropped an idea earlier this week to include tax code fixes in a coming omnibus spending bill as Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer, D-N.Y., said his caucus would only sign on if they got code changes they want in return.

Trump told Republican donors he once told Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau Canada enjoys a trade surplus with the United States despite having “no idea” if that was true, according to the Washington Post.

Any Republican-crafted tax measure almost certainly would need special rules to allow it to pass the Senate with 51 votes — and even then it likely would not be a sure thing. And only a budget resolution can unlock those rules, known as “reconciliation.” GOP leaders have shown no inclination to even craft, much less pass, a budget resolution this year, complicating Trump’s idea — serious or not.

Brady would only commit to a timeline of “this year” for rolling out some “new, good ideas.” However, he did not commit to moving a second measure in 2018.

And one GOP source said that is for a good reason.

“I think the president enjoyed the tax reform process and wants more of it,” said one Republican source with knowledge of the situation. “But, of course, we can’t do that this year, and no one on the Hill is considering it at all.”

Watch: Congressional Republicans Had Wonky Plans for the Week. Then Trump Happened

Georgia’s 7th District will have a six-way Democratic primary after a former healthcare professional qualified for the race, according to local news reports Friday.

The seat is currently occupied by fourth-term Republican Robert Woodall and is rated Solid Republican by Inside Elections with Nathan L. Gonzales.

The latest candidate to enter the fray, Kathleen Allen, told the Forsyth County News she was inspired to run after hearing an elected official’s take on the affordable care act, an issue she has dealt with professionally. The newspaper did not identify the official.

“I thought this district deserves to be represented by someone who is listening to them and who knows what niche issues in this whole health care package relate to different constituents,” Allen told the newspaper.

The district voted 51.1 percent for President Donald Trump in the 2016 election, and 44.8 percent to Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton. That year, Woodall bested his Democratic opponent, Rashid Malik, with 60.4 percent of the vote.

Allan will join Democrats Carolyn Bourdeaux, David Kim, Ethan Pham, Melissa Davis and Steve Reilly in the May 22 primary. On the Republican side, Woodall will have only one challenger, Shane Hazel. The winners will face each other on Nov. 6.

The special election result in Pennsylvania’s 18th Congressional District has rocked the political world on its heels, with Democrat Conor Lamb’s success in the heavily Republican region setting off a fresh round of speculation about the 2018 midterms.

Roll Call Senior Political Reporter Bridget Bowman, who reported from the area recently, was at the Capitol gauging reaction from members of Congress after the latest round of political jousting.

Armed with a Nokia cellphone and a couple of semesters of graduate school, Dan Sena was ready for battle.

It was 1998, and the future executive director of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee was going to be a key cog in his party’s effort to take over a House seat in New Mexico, even though at the time his previous professional highlights included teaching tennis at a country club, washing dishes on his college campus and selling CDs at the Villa Linda Mall.

Then Sena, dressed in a suit and tie, got a reality check on appropriate canvassing attire from veteran Democratic consultant Sue Burnside.

“I remember her saying, ‘What the heck are you wearing?’” he recalled. “I told her, ‘I’m here to help you win.’ She said, ‘Go home and put some real clothes on. You don’t have any idea. You’re going to walk.’”

Over the next two decades, Sena honed his skills in federal, state and local campaigns and now leads the Democrats’ House campaign operation as it seeks to recapture the majority.

Watch: Congressional Republicans Had Wonky Plans for the Week. Then Trump Happened

Back in 1998, Sena felt called home to New Mexico to work on the special election in the Albuquerque-based 1st District. The University of Arizona graduate left Washington, D.C., where he was attending George Washington University’s Graduate School of Political Management, to spend the spring and early summer canvassing — going door to door, with a clipboard in hand.

“He was humble and ready to go to work,” Burnside remembered. “He came to his shift an hour early to do extra things.” He could have played his trump card, according to Burnside, considering his father was chairman of the state Democratic Party, but Sena chose to never tell his fellow canvassers.

“The campaign was just hell and he never showed a moment of stress,” Burnside recalled. “I immediately offered him a job.”

Sena’s Hispanic father ran a van company, eventually receiving his MBA from Harvard, while his Irish mother taught fourth grade. His great-uncle, Dennis Chavez, served in the New Mexico Legislature in the 1920s and, in 1940, became the first person of Hispanic descent elected to a full term in the U.S. Senate.

“In the family, politics is a noble profession,” Sena said.

Now 42, Sena grew up in Santa Fe about 20 minutes away from his current boss, DCCC Chairman Ben Ray Luján, whose father was speaker of the New Mexico House. Back in 1998, Sena worked on Democrat Tom Udall’s successful 3rd District race and spent time at the Lujáns’ home since it was a staging area for the campaign.

Burnside and Sena had to build a New Mexico voter file from scratch for the Udall race, and she subsequently deployed him to a batch of races in California over the next few years.

He helped Joe Baca defeat Martha Macías Brown and the political establishment in a 1999 special election to replace her late husband, and he later worked on Jane Harman’s coordinated campaign. Sena also gathered signatures against the National Rifle Association to pressure the Utah Legislature to review its gun policies. (It didn’t work.) And he managed longtime City Councilmember Joel Wachs’ bid for mayor of Los Angeles in 2001.

“I was 25 and shouldn’t have been managing,” Sena recalled. Wachs went from one of the front-runners to a distant fourth place finish (11 percent) in the primary. “I drove that campaign directly into the ground,” Sena said.

In 2004, Sena helped register more than 250,000 Latino and Native American voters nationwide through Moving America Forward, the 501(c)(3) organized by New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson. Sena eventually worked on Richardson’s 2008 bid to become the first Hispanic president of the United States, but the governor dropped out after early disappointing finishes. All was not lost, however, considering the campaign in Iowa connected Sena with his future wife Elizabeth, now a partner at Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research.

Sena returned to the Land of Enchantment in 2008 as field director for Udall’s 61 percent to 39 percent victory for an open GOP Senate seat.

The next year, he worked on Blackberry co-founder Jim Balsillie’s unsuccessful effort to purchase the Phoenix Coyotes of the National Hockey League. And at the end of the 2010 cycle, Sena worked for Patriot Majority, Nevada Sen. Harry Reid’s independent expenditure committee, and directed Spanish media in the Democrat’s 5-point win over Sharron Angle.

But Sena wasn’t satisfied. For two weeks, he lived at the Days Inn in Ballston, Virginia, waiting for the Democratic Governors Association to call him back for an interview for a second stint. (He spent the 2006 cycle there as deputy political director.)

“We wanted someone who was experienced, but still full of energy,” said Colm O’Comartun, then the DGA’s executive director and a top aide to Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley. “He brought a different perspective to the map that was different than the usual DC-insider perspective, and some geographic balance.”

After a cycle as DGA political director, Sena took a step back from politics. “I was interested in what life was like as a normal person,” he said. He took a job with Share our Strength, building capacity for the group’s “No Kid Hungry” campaign. “I was trying to think through how to balance marriage, a family, and work,” he recalled. “In the end, I wanted to win elections.”

When Udall’s 2014 re-election race tightened, Sena was called in to take the reigns. “When I’m in a tight spot, I want Dan Sena by my side,” the senator said.

“He’s like part of my family,” said Udall, whose daughter grew up with Sena. “He does things by the book, and always stays on top of all the important data you need to evaluate in making campaign decisions.”

He ran the campaign from a dilapidated building in the historic Nob Hill neighborhood of Albuquerque. Staffers recalled him choosing to share an office the size of a closet with the finance director to free up space for the rest of the staff, and carving out time each day for his wife and daughter.

“I drew a moat around those [voters] most likely to leave,” Sena said about running in a cycle that spiraled away from Democrats nationally. Udall won re-election by 11 points.

Sena returned to Washington to work for the DCCC as deputy executive director for voter contact and analytics during the 2016 cycle, in which Democrats netted six seats but fell short of expectations. Now Sena is the first Latino to direct a party campaign committee.

“Diversity is very important to me. And having an E.D. with all the skill sets that Dan has is first critical,” Luján said, while stressing the impact of younger, minority staffers seeing a person of color who grew up on a dirt road running a committee that will raise and spend at least $200 million.

“Coming into the 2018 cycle, I knew it would be unlike anything we’ve experienced,” Luján said. “As we looked at what we needed, we needed an agile strategist at the helm, someone who can work smart and develop partnerships with a number of grass-roots organizations.”

“We’re living in a new world and our campaigns have to adapt,” said Sena, who deployed a field program earlier than at any point in the committee’s history.

While historical midterm trends favor the minority party, the cycle is proving to be a challenge amid Democratic infighting over their ideological and strategic direction and public criticism of the DCCC.

“I know from my career that it can be tough to find a perfect balance between all groups, but ultimately we’ll all be unified to take back the House,” Sena said.